Help! My cofounder has ADHD
We hear a lot about how to support employees who struggle with ADHD.
There is advice on how to understand them, how to help them meet requirements, and generally how to empower their different ways of thinking and doing. But what happens when ADHD is impacting your business’s leader? Meet Jill. Jill is a co-founder in a tech startup that I am coaching. Her co-founder, John, is driving her crazy. Being a clinical psychologist as well as founder coach, I have seen the upsides and downsides of ADHD brain wiring and its impact on leadership and relationships. Jill and John’s issue is common in the startup world. Research (https://michaelafreemanmd.com/Research) suggests that Approximately 30% of founders have ADHD symptoms.
John is brilliant. He’s a visionary. He is creative. He is energetic and inspiring. He is innovative. He is risk tolerant. He’s a quick thinker. He makes decisions quickly. He’s a great problem solver. He has boundless energy and drive. He is passionate about everything he does. He is resilient and tenacious. He is highly effective in high-risk/stress situations. He is imperative to the success of the business. He is the visionary and big picture thinker. He is responsible for product development. He is the face of the company, and he rocks at sales. He does most of the pitching to future investors and potential customers. … But he does not pay close enough attention to important details. He forgets to return important phone calls, like to future investors. He has difficulty responding to team members in a timely fashion. He misses deadlines, which can be costly to the business. He struggles to maintain an orderly calendar. Sometimes he spaces out in meetings and misses information that he needs to do his job. Planning, in general, is a challenge. He makes impulsive decisions. Recently he impulsively bought some product that the company did not really need. He lives in the moment, often failing to factor in past and present events. He is reactive and tends to manage by crisis. Work can feel dramatic for everyone around him, and not in the fun or entertaining way. Jill is personally and professionally impacted by John’s challenges with John’s ADHD challenges and behaviors. John’s deficits create an upper limit on how well they can lead and manage a team and how well they can grow a company. The business is less efficient. Her work is more difficult. She feels like she has to micro-manage. She often feels like she has most of the responsibility in the company. She is not able to do her best work because her energy is being drained by having to compensate for John’s challenges and missteps. It’s not uncommon for co-founders to fall into a “parent-child” dynamic where the non-ADHD partner feels responsible for the everything and the ADHD partner feels like a child. She does not like to be the “parent” in this relationship. At her worst, she relates to him as irresponsible. At best, she is able to delegate some of his work to employees, thus saving her own sanity and energy. She likes and cares about John. She does not like that she is frustrated and angry with him, and that she often takes her anger and frustration home with her, impacting her personal relationships. Everyone’s energy and creativity would improve if they were not at some level being asked to be pick up John’s dropped balls.
What can Jill do?
Here are some strategies my clients have found useful in this situation.
Understand that John’s behavior is not personal. Jill would benefit from doing a bit of research or reading on ADHD. The National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH) https://www.nimh.nih.gov/ posts easily readable information. This would be helpful in her understanding why John is the way he is and guide her toward more compassionate and patient ways of relating to him. It would also help her to remember his magic and how his ADHD behavior can be an asset.
ADHD communication hacks. Be clear. Avoid long sentences with multiple steps in one sentence. Repeat and rephrase. Ask the ADHD partner for clarification and repetition. Communicate face to face when possible. Keep meetings brief. Keep emotions out of the conversation. Prompt, but do not nag.
Routines, schedules, and visual planners help people with ADHD to know what to expect, stay on task, and complete important tasks. Put things on paper so he/she does not have to remember. Use whiteboard calendars in meetings. The more senses are engaged, the more someone with a neurotypical brain will register the information.
Chunk issues that need attention. We are all prone to reactivity as a response. The ADHD person is prone to reactivity and if they are putting out fires all day, their functional ability decreases. Strive to set aside time each day and bring multiple issues to the meeting. This is easier than approaching the ADHD leader with smaller issues as they arise all day long. Coach your employees to do the same and to not approach him/her every time they need something. This should be a companywide habit at any rate. Being in fix-it mode is a natural tendency. Multi-tasking is an impediment to effective thinking.
Delegate mundane or tedious work to other team members when possible. At the same time be clear about your expectations of your co-founder. He is responsible for his part of the street. Not liking parts of his job does not mean he does not have to own them.
Strive to set up an orderly office environment. Create space to pace and space to play. Movement is calming and brings clarity to their thoughts.
Set up structures and systems. When your ADHD partner goes spinning out into magic idea land, and wants to take impulsive action, you are the partner who will rein him in. It is often a dynamic that one founder is the creative force, and the other partner is realistic and grounded about things like planning and implementation. This is a powerful team dynamic when both are conscious of their role in decision making.
Get a coach or consultant to help with implementing strategies and creating a context and safe space for open communication. Jill and John’s type of issue often appears around the time the business starts to accelerate, and the stress becomes more complex. I watched how the implementation of these strategies helped Jill and John create a more effective and efficient business operation, and how their partnership has become more powerful. The conversations were not always easy. Team members have been calmed by clarity and teams have become more aligned. Collaboration has increased. Grumbling has decreased. Clear communication and expectations has resulted in tasks being completed faster. Information has been more readily and efficiently shared. Fund raising seems to have become smoother. Scaling a business always involves founders growing into themselves as leaders, owning their own brilliance and vulnerabilities and being willing to learn new skills.